The Fruit of Righteousness (Philippians 1:8-20)

Starting in Philippians 1, verse 8.

Philippians 1:8

For God is my witness, how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And I pray this that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.

Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.

To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will.

These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.

The others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.

What does it matter?

Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed.

And in this I rejoice.

Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, because I know this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now, as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

Will you please pray with me?

Lord, I thank you so much for this passage that you have us in here this morning.

We know that it's not by mistake that you have us right here.

So, Lord, I pray that as we approach your word here this morning, that you would do a work in us as a church body, but in us as individuals as well.

However you want to work, with whatever passage, with whatever word, with whatever it is that you want to address in each one of our lives this morning, I pray that you would do that through the power of your spirit.

And that we would come to you humbly and with multiple hearts for you to shape and to make us into the people that you desire us to be here on this earth.

That you would daily make us more and more like Jesus Christ, we pray.

Lord, we want to just continue to pray for our country.

Lord, just all of the divisiveness, the violence, the shootings, everything that's going on right now.

Lord, we need you.

We need revival in this country, in this world.

So we continue to pray for that, or for you to come back and fix everything by doing that, Lord.

So we just pray that you would show us as a church and as individuals how to take part in that, how to be a beacon of light for you, a beacon of light that is preaching the gospel in every circumstance, like we see Paul here this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

May be seated.

So as we go through these verses here in the middle of chapter one, there's really two main themes that we're gonna be seeing.

And the first one is Paul's prayer for this church to grow in love, knowledge, and discernment.

And we're gonna be talking about how those three things, love, knowledge, and discernment, need to grow together.

They need to grow at the same rate as we mature in Jesus Christ.

And then the second theme that we're gonna be seeing in the second half of this passage is Paul's contentment and joy in every circumstance.

He's actually gonna tell the Philippians about the benefits, about the positive things that are coming out of his imprisonment, which just continues to blow my mind.

And as I talked about last week, there's gonna be two questions that we want to continually ask ourselves as we're going through this book together, really for our own personal application.

And those questions are: Am I allowing God to make the most of my current circumstance?

Whatever that might be.

And the second one, am I content in maintaining the joy of the Lord in every circumstance?

Because we're gonna not only see Paul exemplify both of these things here today, we will see this throughout the whole book of Philippians.

And like I said last week, there's one more thing to remember.

That's for us to imitate Paul as he imitates Christ.

Not just imitate Paul, but imitate Paul as he imitates Christ.

So keep all of those things swirling around as we're going through this passage here today.

So let's start off by looking at verse 8.

It says, For God is my witness how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Jesus Christ.

Like I said, we we went thoroughly through this last week, but I want to just point out a few of the highlights of that verse in particular.

This word affection here, it means the deepest places within us.

And I mentioned last week how the King James Version actually says, I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

We talked about how to the Hebrews that this word was metaphorically meant to be a person's heart, you know, the deepest place, when we think about the deepest places of emotions and affections and things like that.

So Paul is saying, I miss you with the heart of Jesus Christ.

I miss you with the love of Jesus Christ, with the affections of Jesus Christ.

And this isn't a love that we can muster up out of our own personal effort, or even that comes with good circumstances, or whatever we want to think about it.

This is godly sacrificial love.

This is agape love that he's talking about.

And now in verse 9, we get to see Paul's prayer for this church that he loves so deeply.

So look at verse 9.

And I pray this that your love, that's the word agape there, that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment.

This phrase here, keep on going, means to overflow and abound.

It means to have more than is necessary.

It means to exceed and actually have some leftovers.

So no matter how much we increase in love, there's always room for us to increase more.

There's always room for us to love more.

And God doesn't want to give us just enough love.

Of his own love or our own love to express to others.

He wants us to abound and keep abounding with the love of Jesus Christ.

But I also want us to notice here, he doesn't just say to abound in love.

And then that's it, next verse.

But that their love would keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment.

If you take notes or you underline your Bible, underline love, knowledge, discernment, those three words.

Because again, this is something that we're never gonna arrive at.

We're never gonna be able to say, you know, I've attained max knowledge and discernment.

So if you need advice, just come to me because I can't gain, you know.

We're never gonna get to that place.

The more you gain knowledge, the more you realize how much more knowledge there is to gain.

You know, and we need to notice that those three words need to stay together.

That love, knowledge, and discernment need to keep growing together.

We need to keep the sentence whole.

Because if you're only growing in knowledge and discernment, you're gonna grow in legalism and cruelty.

If those are the only two things that you're gaining.

And if you only grow in love, you will start to accept all kinds of things that are not biblical.

Paul got all over the Corinthians, if you remember in 1 Corinthians, for boasting that they were accepting of sexual immorality in their church.

They thought they were being open-minded and that they were being loving and that they were being tolerant.

Paul told them to purge the leaven from the church.

Get that sin out of your church.

They thought they were being loving, but it became evident that they just lacked knowledge and discernment.

Warren Wearsby has a quote that I love.

He says, Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.

Think about that for a second.

Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.

Love and knowledge, love and discernment, knowledge and discernment need to all grow at the same rate as we mature in Christ.

We need to grow those things together in order to not become cruel and in order to not become accepting of sin.

Paul goes on later in Corinthians and tells that same church in 1 Corinthians 13, 6, love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth.

Those things, love and truth, they have to be paired together.

Almost every time you see it in Scripture, those two things are paired together.

You know, if you're gaining knowledge, but your love for God and his people is not growing, something's off.

If you feel like you're growing in love, but are becoming more comfortable with things that are clearly outlined in Scripture as sin, something's off.

Love and knowledge and discernment need to grow at the same rate.

And I just want to distinguish between those words knowledge and discernment real quick, because they're different words, and Paul used both of them for a reason.

Now, the word knowledge in the Greek means precise and correct knowledge used in the New Testament, which we're in, of the knowledge of things ethical and divine.

So we're talking specifically about the knowledge of things that are ethical and divine.

And then we have discernment, and that means perception, not only by the senses, but by the intellect.

Cognition, discernment of moral discernment in ethical matters.

So discernment is both experiential and it's intellectual.

So we have these two different words here.

I like to think of it as knowledge is learning of the ethical and divine scripture, and discernment is how we apply it.

And the Holy Spirit is going to help us with all of this.

God gave us a helper for a reason as we are learning these things and growing in these things to help us both in our senses and in our intellect to be able to discern good from evil.

I want to give you an example.

This last week was the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah.

Anybody know that?

Anybody keep track of the Jewish calendar?

It landed last week, it was uh the evening of September 22nd through the 24th.

And I don't know if you saw it or not, but some guy from South Africa, anybody know where I'm going with this?

Anybody hear about this?

Okay.

Some guy in South Africa claimed that the rapture would happen this year on Rosh Hashanah, and it went viral on TikTok.

They were calling it the TikTok Rapture Day.

And he claimed that Jesus showed up to him in a dream and told him it was going to happen, and therefore there would be no World Cup in 2026.

Because it would be during the tribulation, and they were not going to be able to hold the World Cup.

Now, if you're a Bible-believing Christian filled with the Holy Spirit, walking by the Spirit, you would hear something like this and sense through the Holy Spirit, something's off here.

Something's not right.

Even if you can't put your finger on it, you're going to be able to sense something's off.

And if you know the word, you would know right off the bat why he was wrong.

Because Jesus said regarding the rapture in Matthew 24, now concerning that day and hour, no one knows.

There's the first hint, right?

No one knows.

Neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, except the Father alone.

Who did he say told him?

The Son, right?

One verse, twice, it discredits what that guy was saying.

The Holy Spirit will let you know when something's off.

You're gonna sense it even if you don't know why at that moment, or you don't know the exact scripture of why that was off.

Maybe later you go, oh, or maybe a year later you're reading scripture, like, oh, that's why I thought that was off, and now this is all coming together.

But if you're able to pair the senses with the knowledge of God's word, the Holy Spirit's gonna be able to use that for discernment in your life.

Even if you don't know why immediately.

But the more scripture you know, the more you will know immediately.

This is exactly why this is off, and I need to not pay attention to whatever this guy is saying.

So, with all that, stay in the word, walk by the spirit.

By the spirit one.

Sorry, that was a slip of the tongue.

That's how we gain knowledge and apply it uh to discern.

Now, as we move on to verse 10 and read it, we may think Paul's preaching salvation through works, but I want to assure you he's not.

Wait until verse 11, it kind of explains it all.

But let's read verse 10 first.

It says, so that you may approve, this means to test, to scrutinize, to examine.

It's a word they used to use with metals when they were testing them.

It says, so that you may approve the things that are superior, and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.

The love, knowledge, and discernment is so that we may be able to examine, test, and approve what is superior.

To be able to discern good from evil.

You know, keeping this in context of our passage, this is a talking about an ongoing, progressive sanctification.

Now I want to explain that a little bit because there's two different types of sanctification in Scripture.

There's positional sanctification, and then there's progressive, ongoing sanctification.

And positional sanctification is when we are saved.

That's when we're made pure.

And in God's sight, we're made pure through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 10:10 talks about it.

Hebrews 10:10

It says, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.

That's positional sanctification.

But there's a progressive sanctification, that's what we're talking about here this morning.

And that's for us now, while we're alive here on earth between salvation and being with Christ.

Because we're made pure through the blood of Jesus Christ in God's sight, but we still sin.

We still live in this flesh with its fleshly desires.

We still live in this fallen world all the way around us.

So progressive sanctification is that process of becoming more like Jesus until the day of Jesus Christ.

As we saw last week in verse 6, he who started a good work in you will carry on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

He doesn't leave us here to flounder after we get saved, but to live from a place of victory in Jesus Christ while we're still here.

And yes, we're gonna fail, and yes, we're going to sin, but when we fail, we repent and we get to get up and continue to fight from a place of victory in Jesus Christ.

As we become more like Jesus Christ day after day.

One of the reasons that God wants our love to keep growing and our knowledge and our discernment to keep growing, it's for us to be pure and blameless, as we see here in this verse.

It's for our own good that we do this.

To protect us from sin and the damage that it does in our life.

And the damage that it does in other people's lives as well, that we know where our sin is affecting them.

Our progressive sanctification, it's not only what's best for God's kingdom, it's what's best for us in the end as well.

So this is really an encouragement from Paul to not be stagnant, to not regress, to not backslide, but to continue in the process of becoming more like Jesus.

As it says in verse 10, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ.

Now look at the next encouragement, verse 11.

He says, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

You know, fruit in Scripture usually refers to the end result of actions.

Jesus said, We will know false prophets by their fruit, right?

The end result of their actions.

Jesus also said, if you abide in him, that you will bear much fruit.

We're also told to walk by the Spirit.

And then if we're walking by the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, the end result of walking by the Spirit, will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.

That's the fruit of walking by the Spirit.

Paul wants to see this church filled with the fruit of righteousness, not the fruit of sin.

And not even the fruit of just having love.

Or the fruit of just growing in knowledge or just growing in discernment.

He wants all of that to have the fruit of righteousness.

That's what brings glory and praise to God.

It's how we live our life.

It's how we abide in Christ.

It's how we walk by the Spirit and how we get to bear that fruit of Jesus Christ.

That's the fruit of righteousness that he's talking about here.

Now, Paul's going to shift gears a little bit as we jump in to verse 12.

So read that with me.

Now, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me, speaking of his imprisonment in Rome, has actually advanced the gospel.

Again, I pointed this out already, but I just want to point out again this incredible perspective that Paul has about his current circumstance.

I mean, put yourself for a moment in Paul's shoes.

You were preaching the gospel, you were living out your faith, and then you were imprisoned for it.

What would your perspective be if you were in prison for the gospel right now and you're sitting in your jail cell?

What would your perspective be?

I think if we're honest, we would probably pray for immediate release, and that fire and coals would be heaped upon those that threw you into jail, right?

Paul sees the good in what most of us would consider like the worst situation we could find ourselves in.

But it doesn't sound to me like he's trying to get out of his current situation, does it?

It seems like his attitude is to be faithful and to be content and to have joy even in the worst of situations.

Looking for the positive, looking for, okay, God, I'm here.

Use me.

You know, I'm in prison, I'm chained to this guard, I'm under house arrest.

Use me in this position.

You know, he finds himself in prison in Rome, and he's thinking, I've got this guy chained to me.

I can tell him about Jesus for his whole shift.

And he can't escape.

I think that's the mentality that he has.

That's peace and contentment in every situation, isn't it?

And in his current circumstance, he's not only positive about it, he's comforting the Philippian church about it.

Hey guys, it's okay.

Don't worry about me.

God is using me right now.

I know you want to see me out of here.

I know you think this is injustice, but God's using me in my current circumstance.

Now look at verse 13.

So that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.

Your translation may say here the whole palace guard in Rome or the Praetorian Guard in Rome.

The first century Roman Praetorian Guard would kind of be like if we here in the US combined the Secret Service and elements of the FBI and elements of the CIA into one.

That's kind of what we're looking at here in first century Rome.

These were the guys that would enforce rule.

They were the personal bodyguards to the emperor.

They were there to squash rebellions.

They served as spies sometimes throughout Rome.

And these were the elite, these are like the special forces.

They had very special duties.

These were guys that were handpicked out of the military to serve in the Praetorian Guard.

And they were also well immersed for their services.

So these are these are kind of high ups.

And Paul says, Yeah, you know, they all know that I'm here because of Christ.

They all know that I'm here because of Christ.

Paul's Sinon to the Philippians at the end of chapter 4, he says, all the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar's household.

Saints that belong to Caesar's household.

You know, I'd say Paul allowed God to use him in his circumstance, didn't he?

You know, I was talking to one of you recently, and you were telling me how hard it is for Christians to get into jails and prisons right now to minister to inmates and even to the guards.

Because of security clearances and background checks and all of the paperwork that you have to do now to get in there.

I would imagine it would be really hard for Christians in Rome to get to share the gospel with the Praetorian guard.

So God says, I'll just chain them to you, Paul.

And they're not going to be able to escape.

That's what Paul's doing here.

And he's good with it.

He's like, okay, God, this is where you have me.

Just continue to use me.

And he's comforting the Philippian church by telling them all of these things.

Now look at how he continues in verse 14.

Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.

More positives coming out of Paul here.

Now the book of Romans was to the church that was established in Rome.

And in Paul's letter that he wrote to them, he mentioned twice how he really wanted to come and visit them and encourage them in person.

And now he's there.

And actually able to minister to them under his house arrest.

Probably not the circumstance he imagined when he wrote to them, saying, I want to come visit and encourage you.

But he's been able to encourage them from prison and to do it on Rome's dime, when you think about it, you know, in the positive way.

Paul wrote this to that same church in Rome, in Romans 8.28.

He said, We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

And he's getting to show them that firsthand right now, isn't he?

As he encourages them from prison.

Now, look at how others are taking his imprisonment.

Look at verse 15.

To be sure, some preach out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will.

So some are using this opportunity of Paul being in prison to say, don't listen to Paul.

He's in prison.

You know, he's obviously doing something wrong if God has allowed this in his life.

Or they might be saying, well, he's not a real apostle.

You know, he wasn't one of Jesus' original disciples.

You shouldn't be listening to that guy.

Or mentioning his past, maybe.

You know, he used to persecute the church.

Therefore, you need to listen to me because I have the market cornered on truth.

So you need to follow me and follow my ministry and then give me your money.

You know, or whatever it might be.

As if preaching the gospel was a competition.

But look at as he continues in verse 16.

These, so he's talking about those he just mentioned that preach out of goodwill.

He said, preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.

So these are those with the right motives, with the pure intentions from God.

They know he is an apostle appointed from the Lord.

And that he's in prison for all of the right reasons.

And that God's using his current circumstance for his kingdom.

They're rooting for Paul.

Paul's rooting for them, just like we should root for anybody else that's preaching the gospel out of love.

Yo.

These other people were kicking Paul while he was down, while he was in prison.

And these other people are supporting him and they're rooting for him, and Paul's rooting for them as well.

Now look at verse 17.

The others, going back to the envious rival guys, proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.

So these guys are kicking Paul while he's down.

You know, I should point out that Paul is speaking here of the one true gospel of Jesus Christ going out, but the motives are wrong for it going out.

So we're not talking about a false gospel.

Paul would never approve that.

He's talking about the true gospel that's going out with bad intentions.

Now look at Paul's response to ones with false motives.

This is amazing to me.

Verse 18.

What does it matter?

Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.

The more I read, the more I admire Paul.

He's not worried about his reputation or others' motives against him.

He just wants to see the gospel going out.

Even if their motives are bad, and even if their motives are selfish, if the right gospel of Christ is proclaimed, he's rejoicing.

You know, these are words of a man that's been humbled and broken and is surrendered to God's desires to build God's kingdom.

You know, I have to admit that this verse is hard for me.

I struggle with this verse.

You know, when I see a pastor that is in ministry and taking advantage of people to gain power or their own notoriety or to build their own kingdom or has any sort of selfish ambition or competition, that really bothers me.

And if that ministry's reach and influence grows, but the gospel is going out and people are getting saved, I do want to have that attitude of Paul.

Hey, at least the gospel's going out and people are getting saved.

He goes on, second part of verse 18, he says, Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, because I know this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

I hope it's obvious that Paul's not talking about his spiritual, eternal salvation in this verse.

Rather, think when you see the word salvation more like vindication or deliverance.

Paul realizes that his defense is the Lord.

We saw it so many times if you read through the story of King David.

He really believed that his defense is in the Lord.

You see it in a lot of Psalms as well.

So Paul continues to rejoice because he knows he will be vindicated.

Both through the Philippians' prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, as it says here.

He believed in the power of prayer and was confident that the Spirit of Jesus Christ would help him.

Because, why was he confident of that?

Because Jesus walked this road before him, didn't he?

He was arrested and tried for reasons that were not worthy of being arrested and going on trial and the death that Jesus suffered on the cross.

So he desired and asked for prayer that he would draw on that same strength from Christ Jesus.

Look at verse 20.

My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

When Paul talks about salvation in the sense of vindication, like I was just saying, makes you think that Paul is talking about being released from prison at first, doesn't it?

Or getting back at Rome for his imprisonment.

But if Christ died at the hands of his enemies for crimes he did not commit, and Paul is seeking help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ, he realizes that he might have the same fate as Jesus Christ.

Paul realizes that his vindication may come through death.

Which can be hard for us to reckon with.

That's hard for me to reckon with.

He doesn't sound like he has the vindication that we want, right?

I want to get back at these people for false imprisonment or whatever it might be.

All Paul is concerned about as we go through this is that he stays faithful till the end.

He says, My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything.

But face his trial and his outcome in Rome with the courage that Jesus Christ faced his.

So that Christ would be honored in that circumstance.

So he seeks help through the prayer of the Philippians and the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

You know, next week's passage starts with, for me to live is Christ.

To die is gained.

Paul has such a deep surrender to the Lord and God's will in his life, that he trusts them with his life.

He trusts them with his life whether Paul's living it or whether the Lord's taking it.

And he actually sees death as a benefit to himself, that is, because he can finally be with Christ face to face, away from the pain and the suffering of this world.

And we need to imitate Paul, as I was saying, as he imitates Christ.

Allowing God to make the most of every circumstance and be content in maintaining the joy of the Lord in every circumstance, even death.

So the question for us here at the end today is have we personally arrived at that place of trust in Christ as Paul has, whether by death or by life, God, as long as it's your will.

You know, not just, we're not talking about just our salvation, but are we living that life for Christ right now?

And are we trusting in him for both of those things?

Will you please pray with me?

Lord help.

These were some heavy truths here today.

But we all want to be able to say, by death or by life, Lord, your will be done.

To live in that place of being so surrendered to you that it's, Lord, whatever your will is, and regardless of the circumstance, that we say, God, whatever the circumstance, your will be done.

How do you want to use me?

How can I be content in the circumstance and see whatever it is that you want me to not only learn, but to do in the circumstance that I am in.

So Lord, I pray that you would, in all of these things, help us to grow in love and in knowledge and in just in discernment as we walk by the Spirit and as we grow and mature in Christ Jesus.

We pray that you would have your way with us in every way.

Your will be done, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.